This Empty Northern Hemisphere
by Lilikoi2
Summary: Love is pretty unforgiving. The rocky road of Tilly and Jen, with a bit of Esther. Starts after the infamous Polaroid incident and continues from there.
1. Chapter 1

**A brief note on why I chose to write this:**

**I love this coupling but I feel like they're not getting enough screen time, resulting in some pretty awkward discontinuity going on with the story line. Therefore the characters and the choices they make are becoming harder to understand and empathise with. This is my version of what happens, it will obviously branch off from the actual storyline as it progresses, because I'm not _that_ good at predicting things. I hope you enjoy this first instalment and please let me know what you think, good or bad. Any response is encouragement for me to keep writing!**

**Disclaimer: The title of this story, the chapter titles and chapter intros are taken from the album 'This Empty Northern Hemisphere' by Gregory Alan Isakov, which has inspired the majority of this fic in some way or another.**

**The characters are not mine, but the words are.**

* * *

1

Dandelion Wine

_And I packed up the dust of all that I owned, handkerchief hung from a pole_

Tilly doesn't know what she had expected, really. In fact, at this point, all she really knows is that it feels like she's been in love with Jen forever. She hears Maddie's sceptical tone ring through her head without invitation, a perfect imagining of what her advice on the matter would be – 'It's not love, for god's sake Tills. It's _infatuation_. You just got a bit obsessed, ya' little weirdo.' She can almost feel the affectionate hair ruffle following the words. She swallows against the obstinate lump building in her throat. So maybe it is just infatuation - but it hurts, like, unbearably. And even if she is misinformed and naive and inexperienced and all those things she just _knows _Jen thinks about her, she's pretty sure that infatuation doesn't hurt quite this badly.

She relives it. Of course she does – all day and all night, going over and over that last conversation until her daydreams start to feel more real than the things that are actually happening around her. In every re-imagined scenario she's quick enough, brave enough, bright enough to convince Jen to stay. In every re-imagined scenario she manages to say something that stalls her, something that makes her reconsider, makes her turn back around and take Tilly's hand in hers and lean in to kiss her. But at the end of each story arc, as the curtain descends on final kiss after final kiss, the reality is the always the same. Jen won't let it happen, won't let _them _happen. And Tilly is reminded that all she actually managed to do to counteract Jen's retreat at the time was sit down heavily, mouth agape, shoulders slumped, and search in desperate silence for words that never came.

She doesn't blame Esther, not really. Well, maybe some small, unaddressed, Freudian part of her does. Maybe some small, unaddressed, Freudian part of her would've liked to have snatched that camera right out of her hands and beat her repeatedly around the head with it ... but it wasn't her fault. It wasn't Esther's mistake to make. She was just unfortunate enough to step into the shadow that she and Jen were casting. Tilly finds it quite fitting that it their death knell came in the form of a photograph: Jen was so in love with images, with the depth and clarity of them, it sort of made sense that one would spell her downfall in the end. But Tilly already misses holding the Polaroid in her hands, regrets giving it to Jen in the end, because it was the only evidence she had that she ever meant anything to Jen at all.

Surely infatuation doesn't hurt _this _badly.

.. .. .. ..

She sees Jen around the school. They pass each other in corridors, and Jen averts her gaze and stares with unwarranted interest at her own shoes as she walks past, and Tilly sighs and rolls her eyes and wonders if Jen really has any grounds to accuse _her_ of immaturity, when she's the one acting like an eight-year-old.

Art is the worst, obviously. A full hour of avoiding being caught looking, or making sure she's at the opposite end of the room to Jen at any given time. Jen leaves the room frequently, returning with cups of coffee, looking wired and jittery by the end of the lesson she's drank so much of the damn stuff. Tilly would almost find it funny if she could stand to think about it for long enough. But it's the most she can do to stay in her seat herself and not spend the majority of the lesson hiding in the toilets, wafting away the passive smoke from the other students who chose to sit out that period.

She almost has a fit on the spot when she realises Jen's lesson is being observed by some senior guy from her teacher training college. She can almost feel the tension radiating from Jen, she can almost _taste_ her panic. It's the first time in weeks Jen has made eye contact with her, and her eyes are big and wide and scared. Tilly doesn't know how to respond. At first she wonders why Jen's staring at her at all instead of ignoring her like usual, until she realises with a nauseating twist of fresh pain that Jen is _frightened _that Tilly's going to grass her up to her supervisor or whoever the hell he is. He's sat there in some kind of beige suit, his legs spread wide in that unappealing male way that makes Tilly's skin crawl, his shirt straining to stay buttoned across his big round belly. Tilly rolls her eyes at Jen and gestures brazenly to the man who she notices is more interested in staring at the bare legs of the student sat next to him than he is in observing Jen's teaching methods and mouths 'Seriously, _this _guy? Jen's eyes just widen fearfully before she dashes into the stock cupboard for no apparent reason.

She emerges a few moments later looking distinctly calmer. Tilly watches her as she nervously adjusts the bracelets around her wrists and smoothes out the skirt of her dress before walking over to a student's desk. She leans over the desk on outstretched forearms and it takes all of Tilly's self-control to not stare at the dips and ridges of Jen's collar bones that are revealed just above the neckline of her dress. She sighs slightly too heavily and tries to refocus on the work in front of her. It takes her a few minutes to become conscious of the fact that Jen is slowly making her way around the entire class, talking to each student in turn. Her stomach clenches with both excitement and terror as she realises this means that Jen will _have_ to talk to her, which will be nothing if not a little bizarre after weeks of such admirably upheld animosity. She sort of wonders if Jen will actually go through with it, or whether she'll try to kill all of her time on the students that precede her, silently praying for the bell that will sound the end of her torture.

'And how is this going Tilly?'

Tilly looks up as Jen stands over her desk, not quite believing that she actually had the courage to speak to her after everything that had happened, feeling almost proud that she managed it, at the same time as completely incredulous that she had the nerve to dare.

'It's OK,' she says, not feeling able to elaborate more articulately. She looks back down at her work, not able to hold Jen's stare for longer than about three seconds.

'This is really beautiful,' Jen says, gesturing to some careful brush strokes towards the edges of the paper. 'It almost looks like it's sort of peeling away.' Tilly watches as Jen's delicate finger tips trail along the paper. 'Like it's unfurling or something.'

Tilly clears her throat slightly as it feels like its rapidly closing up. 'Yeah, that's what I was going for,' she says hoarsely. 'A sort of natural decomposition. Like, something unravelling and revealing this sort of skeletal structural underneath.'

Their eyes lock, and for a second Tilly feels like she's back on the beach, her heart racing and swelling with the prospect of finding someone so utterly perfect, so in tune with her. She can almost hear the waves breaking in the background.

Jen's gaze drifts to her lips and Tilly feels the world shudder to a halt around her. Her lips part instinctively, as if aware they are being addressed, and she has to physically stop herself from leaning in towards Jen.

Jen seems to have the same internal struggle in that moment, as she breaks the stare with an almost brutal suddenness and looks away. 'Well it's really lovely. Keep it up,' Jen tells her, not looking back as she moves onto the next desk, leaving Tilly feeling sick and disorientated, like she's been blindfolded and spun around.

Jen looks like she's about to say something to her as they file out of the room at the end of the lesson. Tilly almost stops in her tracks when she realises, but is jostled from behind by people eager to leave. Tilly swings round as she's cajoled out of the room, twisting her head to get a final look at Jen, who seems to have thought better of it anyway and just offers a tight-lipped, insincere smile.

She's thankful the end of the year is drawing close; that the work left to do is coursework assignments that she chooses to complete in her own time – resolving to spend as little time in the art room as remotely possible.

.. .. .. ..

Maddie notices first – one of the perils of having a best friend that cares enough about you to stampede straight back into a burning building when they realise you might be in it. 'You're not spending much time in the art room,' she says pensively, sipping her coffee in unnecessarily dainty sips. 'I never used to be able to drag you away.' She studies Tilly carefully from over the rim of her mug.

'No,' Tilly answers, fingering a dog-eared corner of her sketchbook. 'I'm working on my coursework at home.'

Maddie stares her down, her eyes unflinching and knowing and Tilly has to look away, back down at her book and her fidgeting fingers. 'Nothing to do with Miss Gilmore, right?'

Tilly swallows, knows she looks guilty but can't seem to present herself any other way. 'Of course not,' she lies. 'It's just, you know ... with everyone stressing about exams, it's not a very calm place to be at the moment.' She offers a smile at the end. It isn't fitting or needed and Tilly wishes she hadn't done it because it makes her look more guilty.

She's more grateful than she's ever been to see Esther at that moment, appearing in the doorway of the café like some kind of short, squat angel. Tilly waves at her slightly too emphatically, making Esther smile in bemusement. Her smile soon falters as she notices Maddie.

'Don't wave at her, she'll come over,' Maddie hisses.

Tilly politely ignores Maddie's orders and shifts along the sofa in an exaggerated manner so that even Esther can't possibly miss the invitation to sit down next to her.

She hears Maddie's exasperated 'tsk' as the gesture.

'Be nice,' Tilly warns her.

'I'm always nice,' Maddie assures her as Esther sits down uncertainly beside Tilly.

'Hi,' she says, looking surprised and slightly suspicious of the fact that she's been invited over. 'How's it going?'

Maddie rolls her eyes at the pleasantry before standing up. 'I'm getting another. You want anything Tills?'

Tilly shakes her head, pointing at the almost full latte on the table in front of her.

Maddie flounces off towards the counter and Tilly sighs a small, inward sigh of relief.

'Are you OK?' Esther asks after long seconds of silence.

'Yeah, of course, why?' Tilly answers hurriedly, almost reflexively, until she remembers that Esther is the one person who actually knows with any degree of certainty why she's not OK, and why she hasn't been OK for a while. 'Oh,' she says quietly. 'Yeah ... I'm ... better than I was,' she says. Honesty tastes strange in her mouth; it's been so long since she's spoken anything close to the truth.

'For what it's worth, I'm really really sorry,' Esther begins to say but Tilly just shakes her head to silence her.

'Really, it's OK. It's not your fault. You did everything you could to help me out,' she says, and believes it too. She knows that if had Esther been a different kind of person, she could've used the photograph as some sort of, like, weapon of mass destruction or something. She smiles slightly to herself as she realises that such a thing would've never even occur to Esther – wouldn't even cross her mind. She's too nice for her own good. Too kind. She'll get eaten alive out there in the big bad world.

'How are _you_ anyway?' Tilly asks, setting a hand on Esther's knee in an overly friendly manner that felt right in that second, but now feels slightly too familiar, slightly too affectionate. She withdraws it quickly before it becomes an issue and clears her throat noisily to pre-empt any awkward silences that might follow. 'Revision going well?'

'Oh it's a _proper_ nightmare,' Esther admits, not acknowledging the sudden presence or withdrawal of Tilly's touch against her skin. 'Maths is _literally_ killing me.'

Tilly laughs, remembering almost with a fondness the more simplistic days of GCSEs. 'Oh my god – I'm _so_ glad I never have to look at another equation again.'

'Thanks, you're making me feel loads better,' Esther mumbles grumpily.

'Aw don't worry. It'll all be over soon. Then you can revert to a blissful state of semi-innumeracy like me,' Tilly tells her.

'I can't wait,' Esther says, looking genuinely seduced by the prospect. 'As long as I can count the change in my pocket that's all the maths I need,' Esther says.

'And the amount of zeros on the end of a price tag,' Tilly joins in.

Esther snorts softly. 'Yeah ... and the overdraft limit on a credit card.'

Tilly laughs, feels her stomach flutter slightly. She hasn't been happy enough to laugh for a while.

.. .. .. ..

They go out to celebrate the start of their study period. Tilly doesn't think it's such a brilliant idea, academically driven as she is, there doesn't seem a lot of sense to her in getting completely trashed in preparation for the last precious few weeks of serious revision – thinks her brain cells stand a better chance of performing if she doesn't kill them all off first. But the combination of Maddie, Sinead and George all whining at her in exactly the same tone and pitch, coupled with the fact that she'd seen Jen purposely turn the corner to avoid crossing her path earlier that day, convinces her that maybe a little drinking and a little dancing could be just what she needs to lift her spirits.

Third drink in and she's sure she's made the right choice. She's gripping onto her sides they ache so much from laughing. They're all crammed into the booth of a dark, sweaty club with music so loud that Tilly can feel it in her bones. She's squeezed tight in between Maddie and Jonno, practically sat on Maddie's lap there's so little space, and Maddie is fussing over her – brushing her hair from her face and playing affectionately with the straps of her dress and she feel appreciated and loved and surrounded by people she cares about. It makes her feel normal for the first time in weeks – normal and happy and young and slightly drunk and, somehow, the world feels a little kinder.

Fifth drink in and she lets George drag her by the wrists to the dance floor. He starts throwing his long, lithe form around the second he sets foot on its sticky surface. His liveliness is contagious, and he bounces around like an agitated molecule, transferring energy to whatever he collides with, which is mostly Tilly, who begins jumping and gesticulating with wild abandon, shouting the words to whatever song is playing in a manner that she would probably find totally uncool if she was sober enough to care. She feels the hot beads of sweat running down her sternum between her breasts and the hair clinging wetly to her forehead, enjoys the closeness of other bodies pumping around her, even the ones that are getting a bit too close and excitable, because everyone is young and beautiful and in that moment Tilly loves them all.

Seventh drink in and she's too sweaty to continue dancing so she slithers away from the dance floor and squeezes herself back towards the bar. She orders a corona with lime wedge jammed unceremoniously down its throat because she wants a cold drink to rehydrate but isn't quite feeling sensible enough to get a glass of tap water.

She feels a polite, tentative tap just below her shoulder and swivels round on the spot to see Esther.

Tilly throws her arms back in greeting, almost knocking her drink from the bar to the floor, before flinging them around Esther's neck and hugging her. 'How did you get in?' she shouts into Esther's ear.

'The bouncer didn't ID me,' Esther says proudly. 'Think it's because I'm wearing heels for once,' she adds, pointing at her shoes.

'Very nice,' Tilly says appreciatively, dragging her gaze from Esther's foot to the top of her legs.

Esther shoves her playfully and Tilly laughs, because she was only joking. Mostly.

She buys Esther a drink before challenging her to a shot of absinthe, which Esther knocks back with an ease that Tilly can't help but be impressed by.

Tenth drink in and the alcohol has given her both the motivation and the confidence to text Jen – a bold infringement upon the unspoken rules that seem to be have been set since Jen broke it off. Whatever it was.

_You don't have to text back or agree or anything, but I miss being near you. _

She tries very hard to spell everything correctly – a laudable triumph seeing as her vision has gone slightly swirly and her thumbs feel like they've swelled to three times their normal size. She's very careful not to add any kisses, not to sign her name. She then switches her phone off for the rest of the evening and casts it disinterestedly to the bottom of her bag, because she doesn't want to be worrying all night as to whether Jen has replied or not.

Twelfth drink in and she's sure coming out was the worst idea anyone has ever had. Ever. The floor feels like it's falling away beneath her as she stumbles out of the club into the early morning air. Her vision sways nauseously and she lets Sinead guide her home using some sort of drunken Monkee-walk technique. She laughs at their ridiculousness for a few seconds before she doubles over and is sick into some bushes. Sinead rubs the base of her spine and Tilly remembers why she thought going out was a bad idea in the first place.

The next day, when Tilly can finally lift her head without it feeling like it's still attached to the pillow with long, rusted nails, she turns her phone back on. Jen didn't text back. Tilly didn't really expect her too, but thinks it still would've been nice if she had. She smiles slightly to find a text from Esther enquiring as to whether she got home safely.

.. .. .. ..

The days blur into one. Tilly alternates her revision subjects to fit with the exam timetable. Her days become punctuated by nothing more than eating and sleeping. She ignores most of the texts and calls she receives, they're only ever her friends complaining about being locked up revising during all this glorious sunshine, and predicting weeks of heavy rain the second their exams are over. She sort of enjoys being so focused, realises one evening that she hasn't thought about Jen for a whole day – considers it progress.

The exams roll by one by one in an almost disappointingly unmemorable way. On the day of her last exam she feels strange. Almost like she could float away. She drifts out of the exam room feeling lighter than air. Summer stretches out before her and the day is bright and warm. She can smell freshly cut grass from the playing fields and she takes a moment just to absorb it all – this feeling of freedom. She knows it's all an illusion; in just over a month she'll be back within the walls of the college, hunching over more books, staring up at more computer screens, erecting more easels. But she lets herself be taken in by the illusion just this once. It fills her with a sense of peace that she's been searching for without even realising.

She sits down on bench near the college gates, revelling in the strange quiet of the college grounds, usually bustling with students. The sun feels warm on her face and she lets her eyes drift closed.

'Last exam, huh?'

Tilly starts, opening her eyes and looking up to see Jen, silhouetted against the bright sky. She squints slightly, as if she can't quite believe it's her, that she's actually engaging her in conversation. 'Uh ... yeah,' is the articulate response she manages.

'How did it go?'

Tilly watches as Jen sits down on the bench beside her, feels for a second like she should move over to give her more room, but decides against it. 'It was OK. Think I messed up one of the essay questions at the end ... I misread the question and only realised about halfway through.'

Jen smiles at her. Tilly finds it slightly unsympathetic. 'I'm sure you'll be fine,' she offers.

'Yeah maybe.'

'All this ... stuff,' Jen gestures randomly, circling her hands, 'it feels so important right now. But ... you'll realise one day that it didn't really matter. Not as much as you think it does.' Jen studies her from beneath her fringe and Tilly can't help but feel there's more meaning to Jen's words than trying to console her that she misread 'Stalin' as 'Satan' and got herself into a mid-exam pickle.

'Yeah ...' she says slowly, not sure if she agrees or not.

Jen smiles at her again, sits back and settles against the bench. Silence passes between them, and just as Tilly begins to unclench her tensed muscles Jen speaks again. 'Any plans for the summer?' she asks, her eyes closed and her head tilted back. She looks so relaxed, her body lounging languidly against the bench.

'Not really,' Tilly answers. 'Mads mentioned something about going away together again. You know, like, 'the gang'. But I'm not sure.'

Before Tilly can enquire after Jen's own holiday plans, a bell rings in the distance and Jen sits up attentively. 'That's my cue,' she says, 'I'm invigilating a chemistry exam at one-thirty.'

Tilly nods. 'Fun.'

'Absolutely.'

'Never a dull moment.'

'The very reason I wanted to teach.'

They smile at each other briefly. Jen looks like she wants to say something, but doesn't. She just lingers in her upright position, hands poised and sprung behind her back, ready to push her up off from the seat and Tilly feels like she needs to keep speaking, just to keep her there for a few moments longer.

'Is it true that teachers play games in exams?' Tilly asks. 'Like ... they stand next to the student they think is going to get the lowest mark and stuff?'

Jen scoffs in laughter. 'No ... who ever told you that?' She shifts slightly from her position, her gaze darting to the side before focusing back on Tilly.

Tilly narrows her eyes, 'You _do_ don't you?' she accuses.

Jen squirms under the scrutiny, 'Honestly Tilly, I don't know where you get these crazy ideas.' She looks down and back up again, smiling sheepishly.

'You're a terrible person,' Tilly tells her, her lips twisting into a smirk.

Jen sighs, almost in confession. 'Well, it's a lot less risky than the 'fittest student' game,' she says.

Tilly raises her eyebrows. 'Yeah ...' her heartbeat feels like its speeding up slightly. She words her response carefully, not sure whether to be playful or serious. 'I hear that can get you into a lot of trouble.'

'Mmm,' Jen bites her bottom lip. 'Besides, I wouldn't be able to play it anyway,' she admits, '_you_ don't take chemistry.'

Tilly's heartbeat races and she feels her cheeks flush hot and red. She opens her mouth to speak but no sound comes out. Before she can engage the necessary motor skills to respond Jen is already standing up and moving away from the bench. 'See you around Tilly,' she says.

'Yeah ... bye ...er ... miss,' Tilly stammers, watches her retreat along the path and through the double doors of the school. She lets herself smile, ever so slightly, and tries hard not to feel like she's just won the lottery.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you so much for your reviews. I find them so encouraging and I'm really glad a few of you are enjoying the story! I hope this next chapter acts as some consolation for the train-wreck of an episode that was on the E4 first look this evening ... let me know your thoughts!**

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**2**

**Light Year**

_I woke you up with poetry and stones, the ragged and the bones strewn around the room_

The mornings are long and lazy. Tilly has never really been one for lie-ins, but sort of feels compelled to take advantage of not having anything to get up early for. She falls easily into the pattern; now ten o'clock feels like a more natural waking time than seven-thirty ever did. She thinks about college now and then, has brief flashes of panic regarding her work when small but imperative pieces of information she couldn't for the life of her remember in her exams explode into her consciousness with startling clarity. She groans audibly when it happens, smacking a palm to her forehead and chastising herself for being such a spectacular moron. The moments are short-lived though, often eclipsed by the triumph against adversity achieved by whoever Lorraine Kelly is interviewing that morning.

She jumps at the unexpected intrusion of her phone buzzing violently against the surface of her bedside table, dancing itself dangerously close to the precipice. Her stomach ignites in a flurry of fluttering as she realises the text is from Jen. She hasn't heard from her since their conversation outside the college, had begun to wonder if maybe she'd imagined the entire exchange in some kind of post-exam delirium.

_I miss being near you too_

Tilly can't help the smile that spreads across her lips, even as she shakes her head at how socially unacceptable it is to reply to a text message two months late. She clutches the phone in her hand and rolls over onto her stomach, considers sending a reply involving a pun to exploit the multiple meanings of the word 'miss', but thinks better of it. She resolves to just open and close the message a few times instead, smiling every time the words appear on the screen.

Her Mum's becoming frustrated with her lethargy, she can tell. Start's interrogating her about things like her 'plan' for the morning or the day or the week, clearly hoping that it will involve Tilly being somewhere other than directly under her feet. She practically thrusts the 'What's On In Chester' leaflet that she got free in the post at Tilly, dropping it onto the table in front of Tilly's bowl of mid-morning cornflakes.

'I've circled some of the things I thought you might like to go to,' her Mum tells her.

Tilly swallows her current mouthful. 'Right ... thanks,' she answers, with no actual intention of even looking at the leaflet until her Mum reveals that one of her circled options is the opening of a new contemporary art gallery across town.

'I thought you could go with that friend of yours,' her Mum continues. 'You know, Jan.'

Tilly's spoon slips from her grip and clanks noisily into her bowl. 'Jen?'

'Jan, Jen,' her Mum waves away the triviality of getting the name right. 'You used to do things like that with her, didn't you? She seemed to be a good influence on you.'

'I'll think about it,' Tilly told her, unfolding the leaflet and studying the information.

She finally resolves to get up at a more 'reasonable hour' (her Mum's words, not hers) and check out the gallery, decides not to contact Jen in the end, figures that she should at least leave it a few days since receiving Jen's text so that she doesn't come across as a _complete_ push-over. She takes the two buses required for the journey across town to the new, painfully modern, purpose-built gallery, commissioned as part of Chester's bid to prove it has some kind of contemporary culture.

'Fancy seeing you here.'

Tilly smiles, recognises the voice. She turns on the spot to see Jen, sketchbook in hand, pencil poised above a blank page. 'Can't even go to an art gallery without being supervised by a teacher,' Tilly shakes her head in false-disappointment. 'What is this, a police state?' She drops her gaze to the sketchbook in Jen's hand. 'Were you going to draw me?' she asks.

Jen quirks an eyebrow. 'Think quite highly of yourself, don't you?' she asks, snapping the sketchbook shut. 'All this fabulous art around, and you think _you're_ the most sketchable exhibit?'

Tilly smirks. 'Well I've been told I have very expressive hands,' she says, holds up her palms for demonstration, all ten fingers splayed.

'Mmm,' Jen agrees, her head tilted slightly to one side, looking at Tilly in that way that always makes her feel like she's being measured up somehow. Like Jen is scrutinising her the way she scrutinised her painting that first time at the art exhibition.

Tilly drops her hands self-consciously back to her sides, fights the urge to fidget nervously on the spot. She suggests they have a look round at the exhibition, seeing as that's what they both came here to do, prepares herself for Jen's critical and over-educated commentary on each piece, feels her heart swell a little as it begins almost immediately.

Tilly finds herself fairly underwhelmed with the whole thing, thinks, as she so often does in these places, that she could produce something far better given the time and the resources. She spends most of time watching Jen and trying to match her reactions until they come across a room of sculptures that Tilly thinks are quite literally the most beautiful things she has ever seen.

'I thought you'd like this artist,' Jen admits while Tilly's face does little to contain her sheer delight at their craftsmanship.

'Oh really?' Tilly asks, feeling almost self-conscious at being found so predictable. 'Why's that?'

'Because you love the detail of things you think you can hold,' Jen tells her and Tilly tries to think of a response but gives up because Jen is probably right anyway.

She feels the exhilarating twist of anxiety in her stomach at the prospect of being alone with Jen when they go in search of the toilets together. She's both relieved and disappointed when they open the doors to find someone already in there, reapplying their lipstick in front of the mirror. Jen disappears into a cubicle and Tilly lingers by the sinks, making stern, focused eye contact with herself in an effort to convince herself that she's not dreaming. The lipstick woman runs her hands under the tap and then moves over to the hand-dryer that clicks-on with a jarring shriek of blasted air and Tilly sees Jen emerge from the cubicle in the mirror as she washes the clamminess from her own hands.

Tilly hears the hand-dryer click off, the abrupt cease of the high-pitched electric whirring leaving a tangible void of silence in the room. Jen, who was disinterestedly attending to the task of washing her hands in the next sink along, looks up at Tilly's reflection at the sound of the door closing, and their gazes lock across the surface of the mirror.

Tilly's not really sure who moves first, whether she manages to spin herself round before Jen has grabbed her by the waist and pulled her, resolves that it doesn't really matter as Jen's hips crash into hers and her hands rush around her shoulders and her lips press against her own. Jen moans the second their lips connect and Tilly feels a warm surge of tingling pulse through her body at the sound, feels similar noises rising in her own throat at a soft brush of Jen's tongue against her bottom lip. She wonders how they went so long without doing this when it feels _so good_, is struck by the almost sobering realization that they've only actually kissed twice this whole time – once on the beach, and once practically by accident one lunchtime in the art room when they both reached for the same tube of acrylic paint and somehow ended up dropping it to the floor and kissing instead.

She opens her mouth, meeting Jen's tongue with a slow sweep of her own making Jen moan again, and Tilly thinks she could fall in love with that sound, her fists clenching into the material of Jen's cardigan as Jen pushes back against her until the rim of the basin behind her presses almost painfully into the base of her spine. Jen's fingers tug softly at the short hair above the nape of her neck as she kisses her, and Tilly can feel the way Jen's body is almost trembling, like she's succumbing to something, like she's on the verge of surrender.

Tilly breaks the kiss, gasping for breath, trying to steady her own shaking, bracing herself against Jen whose own breath is coming in short, sharp gasps and her face is flushed pink. Jen smiles nervously, and Tilly thinks she's never seen her look more vulnerable. She presses a swift kiss to Jen's parted lips before smiling back in a way that she hopes is reassuring. She glances around before looking back at Jen. 'Hmm, romantic ... toilets,' she observes. 'I always knew you were a class act.'

Jen smacks Tilly's arm playfully, pulls back slightly from the embrace. 'I'm an opportunist,' she insists haughtily.

Tilly laughs, loves the way Jen has a comeback or a pretentious justification for everything, even a cheeky grope in some public toilets.

They spring apart as the door opens again. They exchange awkward smiles with a woman as she ventures into the room and Tilly is sort of relieved that she's there to redirect Jen's gaze because if she stared at her any longer Tilly couldn't be held responsible for her actions.

Jen buys her a postcard from the gift shop before they leave.

'Sure you can spare that 50p?' Tilly asks teasingly as she hands it over to the cashier.

Jen winks at her and says 'for you I can.'

...

She goes to Abersoch on Maddie's instruction, feels quite excited to be heading to the coast. She loves the sea, finds its vastness and deepness comforting somehow. Sometimes, when she can't sleep at night, she imagines swimming in the sea amongst great, heaving waves that slowly engulf her, finds something reassuring about not being afraid of drowning.

Esther turns up a few days into the trip with George's 'maybe' boyfriend and Maddie does nothing to disguise her disapproval. Tilly finds it awkward, feels responsible for Maddie's unconditional dislike of Esther, but can't really do anything about for fear of completely dropping Jen in it. She just smiles apologetically at Esther whenever she can, tries to include her when possible and ignore Maddie's exaggerated eye-rolls and unashamedly hostile comments.

'You seem happier,' Esther observes one afternoon as Tilly lounges on the steps to the beach house, thumbing through a set text for English next year.

Tilly smiles at her, shuffles over slightly on the step to make room for her. 'Yeah, I feel a lot better thanks.'

'I'm glad,' Esther says. 'Because I'm fairly sure that if you're not over a heartbreak after three months the only thing that'll help is gin.'

Tilly laughs, reaches out and throws and arm around Esther's shoulders. 'That's good advice,' she says.

She's caught completely off-guard when Jen shows up unannounced to whisk her away from her friends. They've texted a few times since the gallery but they still haven't talked about, well ... _it_ – what they're doing, what it means, all those painful months of silence before the end of the school. Tilly thinks Jen can't just _show up like this_ and expect her to drop everything when it wasn't long ago that she was treating her like she had some virulent form of a contagious disease. She would almost be offended at Jen's presumption if she wasn't so thrilled at the prospect of spending more time with her.

The momentary guilt over abandoning her friends mid-vacation is eclipsed entirely when Jen strips the clothes from her own body in about five seconds flat and charges into the sea. After a few seconds of stunned silence Tilly races after her, struggling out of her clothes in a far less graceful manner, her shorts bunching obstinately around her ankles and her vest tangling itself on her sunglasses; she almost collapses into the sea. The sea bed falls rapidly away from her feet as she ventures further out to where Jen is treading water. Jen grabs her arms as she finally reaches her and Tilly is hyper-aware of their nudity, barely disguised by the lapping water, as Jen kisses her. Her hands run over Jens naked back and their legs bump awkwardly together. She can taste the salt water on Jen's skin, breaking the kiss to press long, reverent kisses against the skin of Jen's neck and shoulders. Their breasts brush against each other under the blanket of the water as Jen pulls her closer, deepening the kiss, tasting like fruit and sun lotion and salt and Tilly is reminded of her sea fantasy, thinks that right now she would be happy to drown.

As they clamber back onto the dunes that crumble and subside beneath their feet, she can't stop herself from asking Jen for something, just for the tiniest inkling of confirmation that this is real, that she can believe in this – like a Polaroid of this moment that she can keep forever. 'Promise me it'll always be like this?' she says, doesn't realise until she's actually said it that it's more a desperate plea than anything else, and on some level she knows that even as Jen smiles and leans in to kiss her that she's promising nothing of the sort.

They sit soggily in Jen's car as she drives along with the windows down looking for a place to eat. Jen didn't manage to recover her bikini top from wherever she'd flung it to on the beach, despite looking for about ten minutes, and Tilly is painfully aware of its absence as the sheer material of Jen's top rests gently upon her chest, doing little to disguise the colour or shape of her nipples beneath it.

Jen catches her staring with a sideways glance and smiles. 'My eyes are up here you know,' she tells her.

'Yeah?' Tilly asks, only just managing to redirect her gaze. 'Well _your eyes_ should be on the road.'

Jen laughs and lets her gear-stick hand fall to Tilly's thigh, squeezing gently.

Tilly smiles and lets her head roll back onto the head-rest, her gaze drifting lazily out over the sparkling sea.

They eat at some seaside pub a few miles away. It's cosy and friendly, local ales and ciders stacked in gravity casks behind the bar. A cat meanders nonchalantly between the tables, rubbing against Tilly's calf as it winds its long body around the legs of her chair.

'I like it here,' Tilly says, before sipping another mouthful of cider. It's sharp and tangy and makes her lick her lips.

Jen looks genuinely delighted. 'Good,' she says. 'I looked online for places I thought you'd like,' she admits and Tilly smiles at the consideration.

'You must've been pretty confident you'd be able to tempt me away,' she observes.

Jen shrugs, 'I had a few tricks up my sleeve,' she says. 'Turns out I didn't need to use any though.'

Tilly scoffs. 'So that skinny-dipping thing ... that wasn't a ruse to get me to come with you?'

Jen shakes her head. 'No, that was completely spontaneous.' She smiles and bites her lip. 'I guess you just inspire that in me.'

'I inspire nakedness?' Tilly asks. 'Brilliant.'

Jen shifts slightly in her seat and glances around briefly. 'You know ... I ... could ...' she smiles nervously, looking down and arranging all her cutlery at right-angles on the table, 'book a room?'

The implication is blatant, and Tilly just nods.

.. .. .. ..

They fall through the door to their room, and Jen is all over her as she fumbles for a light switch on the wall that she never finds, gives up trying when she feels Jen's tongue against her neck, her hands instead rushing to tangle in Jen's hair.

She's faintly aware of one of Jen's hands leaving her side, of the bedroom door banging closed, only opens her eyes when Jen pulls back from her to whip her own shirt off for the second time that day. In the dim evening light of the room Tilly can see Jen's naked form properly for the first time. She reaches out, tracing her hands along the curve from Jen's hips to her breasts before Jen begins to tug her vest up and over her head. She hears the item of clothing drop to the floor with a soft tap and Jen's unhooked and discarded her bra before she's really registered what's happening. Her breath barely manages to shudder out of her lungs as she tries to control her arousal and Jen's big brown eyes look like they're just _drinking _her in.

Just as she's beginning to feel self-conscious, Jen's arm snake around her waist and she crashes their lips together. Her tongue sweeps into Tilly's mouth immediately, and Tilly hears a moan that she soon realises is coming from her own throat, pushes down at the waistband of Jen's skirt until she hears it swish along her legs and crumple to the floor. She lets Jen manoeuvre her over to the bed, which she thinks is somewhere near the window but didn't really get a proper look at the room to be honest, feels the cool sheets against her naked back as Jen pushes her down forcefully onto the bed before covering her with her own body.

'I can't believe this is happening,' she hears herself whisper raggedly as Jen's tongue slides from her collarbone to her earlobe. She doesn't know if Jen's heard her, she doesn't react, maybe just pushes her down imperceptibly harder against the bed, maybe just sucks that little bit harder at the pulse point of her neck.

Tilly almost groans as Jen lifts up from off her, sits up slightly on her elbows to watch Jen unzip her shorts and peel them down her legs, her expression dark and focused with a hunger that makes Tilly feel even more slippery and wet. Jen clambers slowly back up her body, pressing kisses against the sensitive, trembling muscles of Tilly's abdomen, gently scraping her teeth against her nipples, and Tilly's breathing turns quickly into panting as her eyelids flutter closed, barely believing _Jen_ is touching her like this, that these are _Jen's_ hands and lips and breasts and fingers and sharp little gasps and moans and pleas, finds it all too much to really think about as the tension in her stomach tightens and builds to an almost unbearable intensity.

Jen kisses her hard as she comes, her breath hot and laboured, puffing up across the sheen of sweat on their faces. She squeezes her eyes shut tight, feels Jen press gentler, soothing kisses to her cheeks and forehead and nose and eyelids as the tremors coursing throughout her body slowly subside. She clutches at Jen's shoulder blades as her arms slow their movement, and in that moment she _knows_ she's in love. She just knows it. And what's more she knows that she can't do anything more than hope her heart doesn't get broken, but can't do anything to safeguard it from happening.


	3. Chapter 3

**3**

**That Moon Song**

_I've been long gone, couldn't you tell_

She doesn't really know how it happened. It just became something they sort of fell into. It's wordlessly agreed that it's a secret; that absolutely no one can know. Tilly understands the repercussions of people finding out, knows the disaster it would spell for Jen, so she doesn't push it. Doesn't mention it even. Doesn't mention that it has the effect of making her feel like the smallest drop in the widest ocean, a nameless iniquity, a whisper along the wires.

There also seems to be some kind of active avoidance of the subject of college, about what September will mean when it arrives, which Tilly doesn't really mind because the summer is long and warm and September feels so far away that she can't even imagine what it'll look like. She knows that Jen's job-hunting – she catches her now and then, hunched over the job vacancy pages of the paper, thick felt-tip circles traced around what she assumes are viable options. She has to catch herself a few times, on the verge of asking about it. The mood between them is light and uncomplicated and Tilly is terrified of destroying it with those burning, pragmatic questions like _how many pieces do you think my heart will shatter into once our social hierarchies are restored and you discard me like the disposable convenience I am?_ There's a time a place for those kinds of questions, Tilly has to tell herself, tries to swallow down the surges of panic she feels from knowing that the right time and place probably won't ever come. So she lets Jen carry on, she lets _them_ carry on with whatever they're doing. They text like girlfriends, adding kisses to the end of their messages; they meet up in secluded places to hold hands and play with each other's hair and kiss each other's lips. She chooses to fill in any absent information regarding Jen's future plans by sifting through Sinead's regular diatribes about how unbearable a house-guest she's turning out to be: a toxic mix of speculation, personal experience and whatever she's managed to overhear from Diane.

'Honestly Tilly, I don't know how you managed put up with her in lessons,' Sinead says one day, sitting down heavily on one of the couches in the café like she's carrying the weight of the world.

Tilly shifts awkwardly, aware of Maddie's suddenly interested glance in her direction. 'She was fine, honestly,' she says, avoiding Maddie's gaze. 'She's a good teacher,' she can't help from adding.

Sinead rolls her eyes at the lack of appreciation for her intolerable predicament. 'Well all I know is she'd better be getting her own place if she gets that job at college,' she warns, oblivious to Tilly's increasing discomfort. 'I'm not putting up with her for another year.'

Tilly frowns slightly, aware of Maddie's stare but unable to stop herself from asking 'what job?' almost instinctively, like a muscle reflex that didn't OK its reaction with her brain.

'Some teaching position at the college,' Sinead says. 'Mam's been tellin' her it's her 'best option in the current climate', whatever that means. I swear me mam thinks she's Fiona Bruce sometimes.'

'_Our_ college?' Tilly asks, unable to contain that sodding reflex again. She clenches her fists slightly in frustration with herself.

'Yeah _our college_,' Sinead confirms. 'Can tell she's not too keen on it though. Says she's looking for somewhere with a greater 'appreciation for the arts' ... stuck up cow ...'

Tilly knows Sinead is still speaking, but somehow just hears white noise and the throbbing of her own heartbeat in her ears. Could Jen really be considering a _permanent_ position at the college? What would that mean? _How many pieces did her heart shatter into..._? She tries to do the arithmetic, comes up with nothing but a constricting feeling in her chest and a sudden urge to be very far away. She stands up slightly too abruptly, hears herself mumble something about her aunt or her uncle, it doesn't really register. She's told so many lies about visiting extended family members to cover up her meetings with Jen that she's sure her friends now think there's an inexhaustible supply of Evans's hiding in every corner of the globe.

Maddie follows her out of the café, calls her name as Tilly tries to keep her pace brisk enough to escape without her catching up. She does catch up though. It's part of Maddie's success, thinks Tilly, that nothing manages to escape her. She takes a few deep breaths to calm herself before turning round to face her.

Maddie's arms are crossed sternly over her chest and her expression is unyielding and expectant. 'Well?' she asks, brandishing a hand at Tilly as if it would prompt her to elaborate.

Tilly raises her eyebrows in response. 'Well what?' she asks back.

'Are you going to tell me what that was about back there?' Maddie demands.

'What _what _was about?' Tilly asks, wondering how long she can keep this up for.

Maddie sighs in exasperation. 'Is there something going on between you and Miss Gilmore?' Maddie asks and Tilly seizes up, hissing out for Maddie to _sssshhhh_ and spinning around to check that no one heard her.

'Jesus Christ Tills,' Maddie says with a sad shake of her head. 'Please tell me this is a joke.'

'Fine – it's a joke,' Tilly counters. 'A really bad joke that's actually my life starring me and my stupid fucking decisions. Isn't it funny?' she can hear her voice wavering in her throat as it closes up around her words.

Maddie presses her fingers to her forehead. 'Sorry ... it's just,' she looks back up at Tilly. 'Oh Jesus I'm sorry Tills. Come here.' She advances and envelopes Tilly in a hug that Tilly gains very little comfort from. She sniffles a little, brushes some tickling wisps of Maddie's blonde hair out her face.

'I've been a bit of an idiot Mads,' Tilly admits as Maddie loosens her grip around her.

'You've always been a bit of an idiot babe,' Maddie says, chucking her chin slightly and Tilly smiles, half-heartedly brushes her hand away. 'Do you ... like,' Maddie shrugs mid-sentence, 'love her?'

'No,' Tilly shakes her head firmly. Stops. 'Maybe.'

Maddie lifts a sceptical eyebrow.

'Yes ... I don't know,' Tilly sighs, presses a fatigued hand to her forehead. 'I just ... I don't know what she wants from me, you know? I don't know what she _wants_.'

Maddie pats her friend lightly on the shoulder. 'Guess you'd better ask her then,' she suggests.

But when she meets Jen that afternoon, Jen is far too thrilled at the discovery of some manky, abandoned 'artist's studio' round the back of an estate to be interested in answering any questions that Tilly might have for her. Jen _calls_ it an artist's studio, but Tilly gets the impression this may just be wishful thinking, as on closer inspection it appears to be more satisfactorily classified as a potting shed with a sofa.

'What do you think?' she asks, leading Tilly through like an estate agent.

'It smells like banana peel,' Tilly observes, her gaze skimming across the worn wood of the floorboards, over the questionable sofa, back across to the single-glazed windows sat slightly skewed in their ramshackle frames, ivy curling through their weakened joints with dark green tendrils.

Jen rolls her eyes. 'OK so it's missing a few homey touches ...'

'Homey touches?' Tilly asks. 'Jen there are nuclear war bunkers that are homier than this.'

Jen pulls a comically sad face, saunters up to Tilly and places her arms on her shoulders, links her hands behind her head. 'What could be homier than you and me ... together. _Alone_.' She emphasises the last word, as if Tilly can't work out what she's implying. Subtlety isn't Jen's strong suit. Tilly loves knowing that about her, loves piecing together information like that about her to form her character, adding new pieces all the time like she's writing her own instruction manual or something. She's _learning_ Jen.

Tilly has to stop herself from shuddering when she feels Jen's lips press lightly against the sensitive skin of her neck. She grabs Jen's forearms in a feeble attempt to stop her advance, Maddie's advice resonating somewhere in the recesses of her brain. She _needs _to talk to Jen. She needs to talk about what they're doing.

Jen groans in frustration as Tilly moves just out of reach of her mouth. The sound makes Tilly's body react, her nerves jumping to attention and the hot sear of arousal twisting in her lower belly. She closes her eyes briefly at the feeling, tries to keep her voice calm. 'I want to talk to you,' she says.

'Yeah?' Jen breathes, renewing her attack on Tilly's neck, backing her up against the wall so that Tilly can't retreat any further. 'Can it wait?'

Tilly swallows, struggles feebly against the way Jen has her pinned before giving up and allowing Jen to kiss her, long and deep, pushing her body forcefully against her so that she can almost feel every curve. Jen breaks the kiss in a long, lingering way, sucking Tilly's bottom lip into her mouth before finally letting go. 'Still want to talk?' she asks, and Tilly finds it hard to focus herself enough to form a response. Though it's not technically her fault as far as she's concerned. Jen makes it hard to remain focused, especially when her hand drops between them and she starts to run her fingers over the crotch of Tilly's shorts. 'Can't we talk later?' she asks, nipping and licking at Tilly's top lip in a way that makes Tilly's whole body tingle. Tilly just about manages to nod, not even able to remember what was so important that she needs to talk about it _right now _anyway_._ Decides that it surely can't be as important and the way Jen has just started to slowly unzip her shorts, the way her other hand has managed to sneak up her tshirt, the way her breath is hot and heavy against her mouth as her tongue swirls slowly with her own.

Tilly pushes herself back from off the wall, roughly twisting Jen around by the shoulders until their positions are switched and Jen smiles in excitement as she lets Tilly take control. Tilly responds to the encouragement by kissing her hard and pushing her skirt up her legs to around her waist before she even has time to react, immediately rubbing her fingers against the wetness of her knickers and Jen breaks the kiss just long enough to breathe and rest her head briefly against Tilly's shoulder before she's back to kissing her again. Tilly quickly slips her hand into the waistband of Jen's underwear, feels a moan rise in her throat at how hot and wet she is, can't get over how good it feels as Jen's hips move in time with her fingers.

Tilly loves the way Jen looks when she comes, her fringe all in her eyes and her skin glistening lightly with tiny, delicate beads of sweat. 'Open your eyes,' she breaths at her as Jen's fingernails dig into the muscles of Tilly's back. Jen squeezes her eyes shut even tighter momentarily before opening them, her pupils huge and dark. She bites her lip, focusing on Tilly as they move together and Tilly feels something twist inside of her. Some sort of nameless longing that she can't describe, like she's staring back at the shores of home at the beginning of a long journey out at sea; can't help but feel that all of this is too beautiful to ever last, too perfect not to be taken from her. Jen shudders against her, clenching tightly around her fingers, finally closing her eyes again as Tilly leans forwards and kisses her lips, slowly and solemnly, because Jen is beautiful and Tilly can't believe that she's allowed to touch her like this.

.. .. .. ..

But she still hasn't managed to find any solace for her own anxiety. Her unasked questions burn holes in her mind even as she's sleeping. She tosses and turns, trying to switch off, trying to calm her worries as the days peel away from July and August like flakes of dry paint, September no longer a distant concern but a very real and very fast approaching dilemma. One afternoon, as they laze in comfortable silence side-by-side, Tilly tries to ask again.

'Jen?' she says softly and Jen turns her head to face her. Her eyes are soft, her lips pursed on the brink of smiling and she just looks so fucking _content_ that Tilly can't bring herself to ask the questions that she knows she needs to about them, about her, about that job at the college.

At her silence Jen prompts her. 'Yeah?'

Tilly swallows and reaches for her hand, laces their fingers together. 'I'm really happy,' she says, and Jen makes a contented noise of agreement as she squeezes Tilly's hand in her own.

It can wait, Tilly tells herself, closes her eyes at the feeling of having Jen wrapped around her.

It's never been like this with anyone, really. Tilly's always known she was gay. Even when she had boyfriends at school she was just kind of passing the time with them, waiting for things to get better. She remembers thinking during her first kiss with a boy, _is this it_? _Is this what all the fuss is about_? Decided then and there that she wanted to hold out for something special. Something different. It was better with girls, obviously, remembers thinking _god, finally _during her first kiss with a girl when it was tender and exciting and soft and she felt herself melt into a pool of sticky wetness at the sensation. But Jen surpasses everything. Just transcends every other experience. Makes her wonder if _this_ was what she was waiting for, all those years ago with those clueless boys, she was just waiting for Jen.

The weather turns cooler about halfway through August. Grey skies are accompanied by cold winds which are soon joined by rain, light at first, then heavier than Tilly thought possible for this time of year. Jen has been harder to track down, harder to meet. It makes Tilly feel like she's grasping for a dream upon waking as it slips back into the intangible world it belongs to, the weeks of summer already feeling like something distant and far removed, like she watched them on film rather than living them for herself.

She shivers. It's cold. She pulls a blanket over her legs as she waits for Jen, one of the 'homey touches' she brought from her room to make the shed more comfortable and to avoid getting anymore splinters on her knees. She listens to music as she waits, it drowns out her anxiousness, the relentless voice in her head that repeatedly tells her Jen isn't coming.

She looks up sharply at the sound of the door, roughly yanks out her ear-buds by pulling on the wire.

Jen looks troubled. Tired. She reminds Tilly of the people she sees in hospitals at the bedsides of the sick. She doesn't speak when she appears at the door and shuts it quietly behind her, just fixes Tilly with that harrowing, distressed gaze of the sleepless. And Tilly knows as she stands up, brushing her phone from her lap and onto the chair, that everything has changed. She can feel it somehow, like the world is slipping from her. She moves over to Jen before she can speak because she knows that her words will just confirm it all. She kisses her before those words are born from her lips, brushes her tongue against her lips which open without question, meets Jen's tongue softly with her own because _this _is her response to whatever she has to say – this softness, these caresses, these wordless motions of love and longing.

They undress slowly, even in the cool, damp air, with goosebumps rising on their skin. They end up on the floor, on the discarded blanket, as Tilly takes her time to kiss nearly every inch of Jen, savouring each kiss like it's her last. She moves down her body slowly, her tongue and lips tracing her path, and Jen grabs at her hair as she finally runs her tongue through the hot wetness between her legs, and Tilly can feel the pressure from the thighs either side of her head increasing with each stroke of her tongue. The sensation is overwhelming, the taste and the heat and the cold air around them, Jen's fingers in her hair, clenching, unclenching, clenching again. She looks up as Jen comes, watching her body undulate, watching the muscles of her stomach swell and contract.

'I'm taking the job at Hollyoaks sixth form,' Jen says, as they lie together afterwards, and her words feel like they echo around the tiny shed as if it stretched like a cave complex for miles underground.

Tilly breathes a little, trying to limit the rise and fall of her chest to disguise how close her muscles are to shuddering, how close she is to crying. 'What does that mean?'

'You know what it means,' Jen says before Tilly has even finished the question, and Tilly is left wondering how she could've been stupid enough to ever believe that it would end any differently.

.. .. .. ..

The alcohol burns as it slides down her throat and Tilly splutters, wiping her mouth before slamming the shot glass down onto the table to the sound of cheering.

'YES! Evans!' Jonno says appreciatively, slapping her on the back like she's earned macho points or _whatever_, and Bart is laughing because she's bested Neil quite significantly in the drinking contest. He slings an arm around the boys shoulder in false consolation saying 'Don't worry Neil, one day you'll be a real boy.'

Sinead rolls her eyes at the blatant display of misguided testosterone, eyes Tilly suspiciously before leaning over and whispering something to Maddie. Except it's not whispering, because Sinead is physically incapable of lowering her voice that much and the music is so loud that she needs to shout for Maddie to hear her anyway. But Tilly doesn't hear what she says, doesn't need to hear it to know that it's about her. Her suspicions are confirmed when Maddie lays a hand gently on her thigh and suggests that maybe it's time they called it a night.

Tilly shoves her hand away. 'Rubbish,' she says, 'we're just getting started.' But as she stands up she knocks the whole table of drinks smartly to the floor, sending liquids and glass shards spraying over people's feet.

Maddie shoots up from her seat immediately, grabbing hold of Tilly's arms before she too, falls down amongst it all, her balance severely impaired by whatever she's been drinking, she can't remember, something about cocktails, something about shots. 'I'm taking you home,' Maddie tells her firmly.

'NO!' Tilly insists, squirming out of her grasp, and now everyone is staring at her. She looks down at the mess she's made. 'Sorry,' she tells everyone and no one in particular. 'I'll buy you another.'

'You'll do nothing of the sort,' Maddie tells her, making another grab for her but Tilly physically shoves her back, registers the look of shock in her friend's eyes but doesn't dwell on it, just storms off into the throng of bodies in the club, pushing roughly past them all into the bathroom where she slams through the door of a toilet cubicle and just heaves her guts up.

When she finally finishes retching she wipes her mouth, stands up and walks shakily towards the sinks. She splashes some water on her face and looks at her reflection. She looks drawn and ill, her hair mussed with sweat and mascara smudged all around her eyes. Everything hurts.

She doesn't go back to look for her friends, just traipses outside instead, feels the cold night air sting her wet cheeks, a sharp contrast to the hot tears that streak down them. She sits down heavily on the curb, breathing deeply, trying to stop her vision from swaying.

She hears a small, friendly, unassuming 'hey' and looks up to see Esther stood near.

She drags the heels of her palms roughly across her eyes, giving half a thought to the state she must look – mascara all down her face and her eyes red from crying, 'hey,' she answers back.

'Can I sit down?' Esther asks and Tilly sort of snorts, sort of cries at the polite formality of the question when she's sat in a gutter on the side of the road.

'Pull up a chair,' she says, patting the pavement next to her.

Esther smiles and sits, tucking the skirt of her dress under the backs of her legs as she lowers herself to the ground. The dress is white. It'll get ruined. Tilly notices but doesn't mention it, leaning her head tiredly on Esther's shoulder instead because she doesn't have the energy to do anything else. She feels Esther's arm reach around her small shoulders, feel her fingers stroke gently along her back.

'Why are you always around when I'm falling apart?' Tilly asks, almost thinking out-loud.

Esther shrugs, momentarily dislodging Tilly's head from her shoulder. 'I guess I have a sixth-sense or something.'

Tilly smiles slightly, feels another tear slip down her cheek, didn't even realise she was still crying. 'You're like my ... spiderman or something,' she says, before snorting at her own ridiculousness.

'Hate to disappoint you but ... I'm not much for the spandex,' Esther says and Tilly smiles again.

They sit like that for a while. Just being. Just breathing and blinking as the night air curls around them.

'I don't think it's meant to be this hard,' Tilly says, breaking the comfortable silence that could've stretched on for hours. 'You know ... loving someone,' she sniffs and wipes roughly at her nose. 'I don't think it should be this hard.'

She looks up. From Esther's shoulder she can just about see the curve of her lips. 'I don't know,' Esther says, 'I think something worth having is always hard to get. That's what makes it special. If it was easy it wouldn't mean anything. Loving someone.'

Tilly lifts her head slowly, looks at Esther, her skin soft and smooth in the darkness, her eyes kind and her lips pink. She's kind and she's smart and she's warm and she's right there in front of her.

Tilly lunges forwards, her eyes closed and her lips parted just slightly, shimmering wet. Esther pushes her away. Once. Twice. Tilly resurges a third time, not meeting any resistance, finally crashing her lips to soft lips, to a hot, warm mouth. The wrong lips. The wrong mouth. But it'll do. It helps somehow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **_OK so I don't know about you guys but I'm not really feeling the whole 'Tilly is a rebel/vindictive lunatic' vibe that H/O have got going on right now. I mean, having your heart broken for the first time is something pretty much everyone goes through at some point, and for that reason pretty much everyone can relate to how much it sucks..._

_But how many of you have made it your personal vendetta to make life a living hell for the other person? I'm going to guess nobody, because most people are decent humans that recognise that a breakup, particularly of a serious relationship, is pretty traumatic for both parties and don't really feel energetic or motivated enough to turn all sociopath and go around causing rubbish. __It just seems so out of character to me - Tilly was always so reasonable, and part of her own moral guidance sort of came from her sheer devotion and adoration of Jen, whose needs she always put above her own. Whether they're trying to play up the whole 'Tilly isn't mature enough' storyline or what, I don't know. But there are other, far more realistic ways, to act out that don't have to involve an entire character re-write._

_Anyway, this is just a long winded way of me saying I'm not going to go down that route. Because it's kind of boring and clumsy and just ugh ... disappointing._

_And I know it's only a soap or whatever, but it has a potentially huge outreach, and another story about the various lunacies of another mentally unstable lesbian is just so last century I almost can't be bothered to credit it with acknowledgement._

_OK - rant over, and I remain hopeful that this will all work itself out. On with the story! Thanks for the continued support guys - sorry for the delay between updates ... it won't be so long next time, promise :)_

* * *

**4**

**Evelyn**

_There's an old folk song on the radio, sounding thin and dark and haunted_

It's not like they're girlfriends. Tilly tries to classify it, lying quietly beside Esther, the room pitched blue and shadowy as the digital display on the radio beside the bed informs her that it's little after 2 am. Esther's breathing is slow and quiet, her chest barely rising and falling, lying on her back in the exact position she fell asleep in hours ago. Tilly can't help but think of Jen, tossing and turning, forever manoeuvring herself closer and closer to the middle of the bed, murmuring incoherently and reaching for Tilly's arms and hands in her sleep. Tilly would fondly refer to it as her 'chaotic REMs', and Jen would emphatically deny such behaviour. She misses Jen more than she can say – more than she can bear to even think about. She even tries to hate her, just to see if it will help, but finds she can feel nothing more than the emptiness and ache of being severed from a love that completed her. So she just lies there, half a person, tucks her body closer into Esther's side and closes her eyes – waits for sleep to come so that it might permit her to dream.

Or maybe they are girlfriends, Tilly thinks the following day, as she listens to the metallic clink of a spoon against china as Esther stirs two sugars into the tea she is making for her. They don't talk about it really – they haven't made it official – but they kiss and fall asleep together watching movies and hold hands as they wander through town ...

Esther smiles as she sets the cup down in front her. Tilly smiles back, hooks her fingers around the warm handle. 'Thanks,' she says.

'I was wondering,' Esther says, pulling out a chair beside her and sitting down, 'would you like to go away somewhere?'

Tilly stares at the surface of her tea, waits for Esther to elaborate on the suggestion before she reacts.

'Like ... together. A day-trip or something. I was thinking maybe Bath. We could get a coach,' Esther continues. 'I'm dyin' to get out of this town for a bit. And we have to be back in college in ...' she frowns and Tilly smiles a little to notice that she's counting on her fingers, 'six days.'

Tilly looks up from her tea and into the soft, kind blue of Esther's eyes. 'Yeah ... sounds nice,' she agrees.

Esther flat-palms the table gently. 'Great,' she says, 'I'll look up coaches online.' The legs of her chair scrape against the floor as she stands and rushes to retrieve her laptop.

Tilly takes a sip of her tea, jerking it away from her immediately as it burns her top lip. She sighs, mopping up the spilt liquid from the table with her sleeve.

Definitely girlfriends then.

.. .. .. ..

Results day comes and goes and Tilly almost forgets to feel nervous about it. She waits in line in front of the D to F queue to be handed her brown envelope, feels her stomach twist nervously with an anxiety that for once has nothing to do with Jen and it feels bizarre and not totally unwelcome. When she receives the envelope she moves away from the queue to a quieter area before tearing open its top fold and withdrawing the slip from inside with trembling fingers. She almost squeaks in shock as the letters and figures she sees on the page register their meaning in her brain. She reads and re-reads, feels a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth, her previous anxiety settling somewhat into a strange sort of satisfaction – the reassurance of having made the right decision _not_ to abandon college like she had half-planned to do at the end of the summer, for Jen's sake. She takes out her phone and quickly taps out a message to Esther.

_4 A's! Meet me to celebrate?_

She wanders outside, weaving through the huddled groups of students that have gathered like crows around the college gates. She sighs in a brief moment of contentment and closes her eyes, tilts her face up towards the sky – the late summer sunshine just about warm enough to feel on her skin. She stays like that for a while, listening to the muted shrieks and giggles of other excitable students eagerly tearing open their own envelopes and rustling the papers inside. When she opens her eyes again she notices the slight trace of orange in the leaves of the trees.

She becomes faintly aware of someone calling her name, spins round on the spot to find where it's coming from.

'Hey Tills!' Maddie says, tackling her into a fierce hug. 'I got three B's!' she shrieks into her ear, and Tilly pulls a pained expression at the volume of the exclamation. She pulls back away from Maddie's embrace, pressing a hand to her ear.

'That's great Mads,' she says.

'Well?' Maddie asks, gesturing to Tilly's envelope.

'Four A's,' Tilly mumbles, looking down self-consciously, but Maddie just beams at her.

'Ah you big old brain box. Well done!' Maddie squeezes her shoulder affectionately. 'Come on, let's find the others to celebrate.'

Tilly hangs back and Maddie takes a few steps before stopping and eyeing her quizzically.

'I'm meeting Esther,' Tilly admits quietly, feels stupid and angry at herself for letting Maddie make her feel embarrassed about it.

Maddie rolls her eyes like the information is the epitome of tedium. 'Can't she catch you up?' she asks.

Tilly crinkles the envelope slightly in her hand as her grip tightens. 'Nah ... it's cool. You go, we'll catch up.'

Maddie huffs dramatically. 'Don't bother,' she says, pacing away and Tilly looks back up at the orange leaves. Then Maddie stops, turns, looks Tilly up and down. 'You know ... I thought you had at least _some_ sort of taste. Miss Gilmore might've been a teacher and everything but I can see what you saw in her. Esther's not even _close_ to her league.'

'Hey!' Tilly says indignantly, full-on scrunching the envelope in her fist.

Maddie's expression slowly softens. 'Sorry Tills,' she concedes, 'I just want what's best for you, you know?'

Tilly holds her stare for a moment before sighing and shrugging with one shoulder. 'I know. But right now ... there isn't a best. Me and Jen are over ... and Esther's –'

'Convenient?' Maddie offers.

Tilly frowns. 'It's not like that.'

'No ...' Maddie says, her stare hard and uncompromising. ''Course not.' She smiles insincerely. 'See you around Tills.'

Tilly nods and Maddie walks off, stopping briefly to air-kiss both cheeks of a girl she bumps into on her way out through the gates.

Tilly shakes herself slightly and turns away – she can't be bothered to dwell on Maddie's words, not when her results are so good and the day is so warm; she steels herself in her determination to not let anything stop her from enjoying her own small success.

Then, in an almost cruel coincidence, Tilly finds herself staring directly at Jen, who has emerged from the front entrance of the college with Diane, talking animatedly about something, gesturing enthusiastically with her hands.

Tilly freezes, unable to redirect her gaze, or move, and Jen catches her staring. Out of ear-shot, Tilly watches Jen's mouth move to excuse herself from Diane's company, and Tilly considers running away as Jen moves purposefully over to her, but finds she can do nothing more than watch her advance.

'Tilly,' Jen says curtly as she walks up to her.

'Miss,' Tilly replies, tries futilely to stop her elevated mood from slipping back into despair at the mere sight of her.

'Congratulations,' she says, nodding to the envelope in Tilly's hands.

'How do you know what I got?' she asks, clutching the envelope closer to her chest, like it contains something hugely personal, like Jen hasn't seem her naked and writhing beneath her in the throes of some terrible passion, asking her to do things with her hands and lips, breathing hard against her mouth and telling her how good it feels.

Jen's momentary look of offence passes quickly, and she stiffens slightly and tucks some hair behind her ear. 'I marked your art coursework, remember,' she says. 'I only know you did very well in that.'

'Oh'. Tilly's grip on her envelope loosens, and the hand holding it falls back to her side. 'Well ... thanks,' she says.

Jen tilts her head slightly, studying Tilly's face too closely, and Tilly clears her throat awkwardly, glances towards the gates to check for any sign of Esther. She almost jumps a little when Jen speaks up again.

'So are you going to carry on with four subjects this year or drop one of them?' Jen asks, and Tilly fixes her with an incredulous look.

'What do you care?' she asks. 'Why are you even talking to me?'

Jen looks positively shocked at Tilly's words, and Tilly regrets them for a second, watching as Jen slowly recovers from her hostility.

'Tilly,' she says, in that slow, measured, _teacher's_ voice that she reserves for telling her something she doesn't want to hear.

'Save it,' Tilly says before she can elaborate. Anger flashes across Jen's face and she opens her mouth to argue, but then stops immediately, physically takes a step back away from Tilly, as Esther flings her arms around Tilly's shoulders from behind.

'I got your text,' she says, 'congratulations! You're so clever.' Esther presses a kiss to Tilly's cheek and Tilly feels her face flush red. She glances guiltily at Jen, notices the gaze she has fixed on Esther is one of shocked bewilderment.

'Hi Miss Gilmore,' Esther says, relinquishing her grip on Tilly's shoulders but remaining very close to her, their hands touching, close enough to hold.

Jen blinks rapidly a few times. 'Hello Esther,' she says. Her voice sounds small and faraway. Tilly watches her chest swell as she takes a deep breath.

Tilly swallows nervously, because as angry as she is at Jen, and as much as she had wanted to wound her just a few seconds ago, she finds she can't stand to see her hurt. Tilly studies her for a moment, trying to ascertain if she is hurt, or just shocked, or perhaps worried that Esther knows something, but Jen's expression has slipped back into an unreadable blankness and she merely purses her lips in a brief smile before excusing herself and walking away.

Tilly watches her go, waiting for the sudden, irrational resentment towards Esther to pass.

'Everything OK?' Esther asks.

Tilly feels her slipping her fingers in between her own. She turns her head to look at her. ''Course,' she answers. 'Drink?'

.. .. .. ..

Despite a week of agitated, sleepless nights preceding its start, College is almost astonishing in its mundanity. Tilly slips back into old routines like the summer never happened, rushing to and from lessons with armfuls of books and papers, dossing around in the common room with her friends in free periods, loitering out by the college gates with a thick scarf wound round her neck waiting for George to turn up with the notes she leant him to finish whatever homework assignment he forgot about. She almost feels normal.

Even art has become just another dull exercise that marks the passing of another day. The first lesson of the year Tilly doesn't know where to look, tries to focus on the presentation Jen has put up on the projector screen at the front of the class. Tilly's eyes scan across the images.

Colour.

Texture.

Light.

Shade.

Jen.

Her gaze refocuses sharply on the woman stood in front of the screen, silhouetted slightly against the bright screen behind her. The lights of the classroom are turned off, the blinds drawn, and the light from the screen makes Jen's outline glow. Jen's speech falters as she catches Tilly's gaze, and she blinks rapidly, checks back through her notes, her finger pushed up against the paper as she tries to find her place. Tilly looks back down at her notebook, waits for Jen to begin speaking again before she looks back up, focuses on the screen for the rest of the presentation. When it's over and Jen flicks the lights back on, her gaze lingers on Tilly, freshly illuminated, with deep brown concerned eyes and Tilly struggles to concentrate. She rushes out of the room at the first sound of the bell, ignoring Jen's surprised 'hey!' ... doesn't wait to hear the subsequent 'the bell is for me, not for you' and practically runs to the common room and just sits in silence for a few precious seconds before the other students begin to saunter through the doors.

But after that first time Jen barely acknowledges her presence, and Tilly becomes used to it. It's easier that way, she thinks. Easier than last year – with its lingering looks of yearning that made her heart flutter – more manageable somehow. Art is still a chore, but she realises with a sort of quiet pride that she can handle it, and she learns to quell her own fretfulness and apprehension with a maturity she didn't know she was capable of, and slowly feels the intensity of the hurt, and the sting of rejection, fading from the present into the past.

She wonders how much of it is down to Esther, whose ignorance of Tilly's true emotional state allows her to almost forget it herself. They have a good time together – it's easy, they make each other laugh, and find they can spend hours just sitting together, talking about nothing, sometimes barely even speaking sentences, watching the world happen around them like they're casual observers sitting just the other side of reality.

Even Maddie begins to give up on the eye-rolling and withering stares, and eventually seems just about able to accept that if she wants to see Tilly, Esther will probably turn up as well at some point.

'How's _art_ going Tilly?' Maddie asks one day as they lounge on a sofa in College Coffee, the abrupt change of conversation topic catching everyone's attention, especially Esther's, who is sat beside Tilly, her hand resting lightly on her thigh.

Tilly takes a thoughtful sip of her coffee, self-assured in her awareness of all Maddie's guerrilla techniques to squeeze information from people that she senses have something to hide. 'Fine,' she answers, slowly leaning forwards and setting her cup back down.

'It's just I heard some of the other students complaining about Miss Gilmore,' Maddie says, non-chalantly inspecting her nails, and she's being so transparent that Tilly can't help but stare at her in amused disbelief.

'Really?' she asks dryly, her tone of voice conveying her lack of interest in indulging Maddie any further.

'Mmm ... they were saying she's really distracted. Forgets her lesson plan, forgets what homework she's set ...' Maddie recounts, and Tilly frowns a little, a small flicker of concern igniting inside her.

'Yeah ... she's been a acting really weird at home as well,' Sinead pipes up, and Tilly's flicker of concern suddenly becomes a full-on panic, because Maddie could've just been lying to try and catch her out in front of Esther, but Sinead could only be telling the truth. 'I swear she's stopped sleeping or something. No matter what time I get in she's always there, like, sat at the table or on the sofa or something. At like _three a.m_. It's creepy,' Sinead concludes with a physical shudder.

Tilly swallows, unsure how to react. Maddie is staring her, and Tilly tries very hard to remind herself that all of this is no longer her problem, or her concern.

Though when she goes home, kicks off her shoes and drops her bag and hangs up her coat, she finds that she can't think of anything she'd like to do more than stretch out on her bed next to Jen, and weave their fingers together, or run her fingertips up and down the length of her arms or through her hair, lean over to kiss her temple, her nose, her eyelids, her lips. Just be with her. Just have her within reach.

And with this in mind, Tilly finds it quite unfair that it should be Jen who rounds the corner during break-time at college one day, at the exact moment that Esther leans up and kisses her, pulling her close by the bag strap on her shoulder and sighing when Tilly's fingers move to her face and trace softly along the line of her jaw before hooking gently under her chin. Footsteps scuffle to a stunned halt and Tilly breaks the kiss and looks up to see Jen, her face contorted in an expression of pure shock and hurt. Tilly stops just short of physically pushing Esther away, and a few long, tortuous seconds pass as Jen visibly struggles to disguise whatever emotions were just set coursing violently through her, finally managing to close her parted mouth and blink her eyes in a futile effort to regain some sort of control over her facial expression. Tilly feels all the colour drain from her own face with nauseating rapidity and just stares desperately after Jen as she turns on her heels and dashes back down the corridor.

Tilly presses a hand to her forehead, mortified at what has just happened.

'What was that about?' Esther asks.

Tilly glances sideways at her, tries to calm herself, shakes her head. 'Fuck knows,' she mutters.

Esther bites her bottom lip slightly, narrows her eyes in the direction Jen has just fled, then looks back at Tilly. 'There's nothing ... you know ... you two ... you're not –'

Tilly's eyes widen at the insinuation. 'No! God no. I mean ...' she shakes her head again. 'Not since the summer. I swear.'

Esther nods slowly. 'Yeah ... I know,' she says, with a reserved tone of scepticism, but Tilly finds she can't be bothered to try and convince her further, too preoccupied with worrying about Jen's reaction to what she just saw.

She tells Esther that she'll see her later, and walks off briskly in pursuit of Jen, finds her crashing about bad temperedly in the art room, rifling through draws of paint brushes and dumping handfuls of them noisily in the sink.

'Jen,' Tilly says quietly from the doorway, and Jen freezes momentarily, before leaning heavily on the sink with straightened arms and locked elbows.

Tilly pushes the door closed behind her and ventures further into the room. 'What you just saw ... it's –'

'It's none of my business Tilly,' Jen interrupts, in a careful measured voice that betrays her earlier behaviour.

'No ... but ... it's just,' Tilly stammers for the right words, not sure she should've followed Jen at all, seeing as she doesn't really have anything to say for herself nor Jen any right to be pissed off in the first place. She walks further forward. 'This is hard for me too you know,' Tilly says, stopping so close to Jen now that she has to turn away from the sink and face her.

Jen looks fleetingly at her lips before meeting her gaze, and her previously stiff body seems to slump in defeat. 'Why are you even here Tilly?' she asks.

Tilly scoffs, like it's obvious. 'Why do _you_ think?' she asks. 'I want to know what just happened back there.'

Jen folds her arms and rolls her eyes in an alarmingly Maddie-esque display of petulance. 'Leave it out Tilly,' she says.

Tilly frowns. 'No I won't _leave it out_,' she tells her. 'Not until you tell me what's going on.'

'I mean it,' Jen warns, and her resistance just makes Tilly more defiant in her pursuit.

'Just tell me,' she demands. 'God ... why are you acting like this?'

'Because I can't _fucking take it Tilly_,' Jen almost hisses, her words laced with an explosive, toxic anger that makes Tilly jump. 'I just can't, OK?'

Tilly doesn't know what to say, opens and closes her mouth a couple of times before she manages to make a sound. 'Well that's just great then, isn't it?' she asks, folding her arms crossly. 'You don't want me but you don't want anyone else to have me, is that it? That's really fucking mature.'

Jen closes her eyes in exasperation, like Tilly's just not fucking getting it or something. 'I never said I didn't want you,' she says in a quieter voice before opening her eyes again, and Tilly just shakes her head as her eyes fill up with tears because this is too much now, this has happened too often and she can't put herself through this again.

'Don't say stuff like that,' she asks of Jen in a pathetic, pleading voice that she can't stand to hear coming from herself.

Jen nods, like she knows how unfair she's being, 'I know ... I just ... I can't help it,' she admits. 'It's just hard, you know? Seeing you around all the time with her.' She looks down at back up, and Tilly notices for the first time how exhausted she seems, how pale and unwell she looks. Sinead's words drift hauntingly through her mind '_I swear she's stopped sleeping ..._'

And as if a switch had been flicked inside her, Tilly feels her anger ebb away, replaced with a hollow sadness, and an empathy that she hasn't felt before. She wonders briefly what this new feeling is ... realises quite suddenly that it's some sort of forgiveness. That she has somehow reached a point where she is able to forgive Jen for the pain and sadness she's caused her, and in a practically simultaneous realisation, notices that her inability to do this sooner has been traumatising Jen for months.

Tilly sighs, lets her hand reach out towards Jen almost of its own accord, traces her fingers lightly over the knot of Jen's delicate wrist, and Jen glances nervously back towards the door but doesn't push her hand away. Their eyes meet, and Tilly smiles a small, sad smile at her, which Jen stares at long and hard before reciprocating.

'It'll be OK,' Tilly says, not really sure why she feels compelled to reassure Jen, but finds that she just wants to make things better rather than worse for once.

Jen sniffles a little, like she's just about managing to stave off the tears Tilly could hear in her voice a moment ago. 'Yeah,' she says quietly, moves her hand slightly to allow Tilly's fingers to link with her own.

They stay like that for a few moments, staring at their intertwined fingers, before the bell for next period rings and Tilly leaves without another word.


	5. Chapter 5

_OK so Hi! Sorry for the huge delay between chapters. Hope it's worth the wait :/ ..._

_(And just FYI re: the bus crash. I mean, whatever, soap opera drama, etc. But I'm not killing anyone off, m'kay?)_

* * *

**5**

**Virginia May**

_We spent all this time just trading crimes_

Autumn takes hold. Leaves thicken Tilly's path to college – crisp and brittle beneath her feet on the cold, dry days; treacherous and mulchy in the wet. It rains a lot. That sort of cold, _particularly_ wet rain that soaks you in seconds and Tilly invests in an umbrella, which she promptly loses and has to resort to cowering under the hood of her not-completely-waterproof jacket, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger to pull it further down over her face, making rain trickle icily down her sleeve and freeze her from the inside out. And when she arrives at college sodden and cold and her hair curling from the damp, she sits in the common room just staring through a clear strip she has wiped into the surface of the condensation that fogs the window and thinks fondly of those crisp autumnal images of places like London and New York, with their bright blue skies and avenues of auburn trees, and finds herself overwhelmed with the sense of wanting to get away – away from this tiny village and its rain and its problems.

Maddie calls for her every Thursday before college, when they have English together first period. Tilly likes the routine. It makes her feel younger, child-like, waiting excitedly in the hallway with her coat already on for the shrill ring of the doorbell.

Rain falls all through one Wednesday night in late October and shows no sign of stopping as Thursday arrives. Tilly yanks the front door open at the sound of the doorbell and Maddie bustles through in irritation, already half-soaked, her shoes squeaking on tiles and her coat and umbrella dribbling water like a ruptured pipe.

'Jesus Christ,' she mutters, pulling her hood back from over her head. 'I swear I'm not even leaving the house if it's raining like this again tomorrow.'

Tilly pulls her coat tighter across her chest, eyeing Maddie distastefully, not wishing to end up quite so bedraggled. They hang around for a few minutes, optimistically willing the rain to ebb slightly before they make their getaway, until Tilly's Mum discovers the mess Maddie is making of the hall and ushers them out urgently claiming that 'a little rain never hurt anyone.'

'Your Mum could've given us, like, _two seconds_,' Maddie huffs, re-positioning her hood and trying her best to tuck her hair back into it.

'I know,' Tilly agrees, 'she's totally paranoid about mess in the house. I keep leaving leaflets about OCD lying around so she gets the hint ... but she just _tidies _them away...'

Maddie sniggers, 'I'm telling you Tills, the sooner we can get away to university the better.'

Tilly squints out from beneath her hood into the rain-soaked street and realises that Maddie's right. There's nothing to keep her here.

'Fucking hell ...' Maddie mutters, her pace quickening as the rain seems to hammer down even harder. Tilly can feel it rattling against the hood and shoulders of her coat, soaking through the material of her jeans, splashing up from the pavement around her feet. She squeals girlishly as her foot dislodges a paving slab, catapulting water over the back of her leg and sinking her foot into a dirty black puddle.

Maddie laughs and Tilly brandishes a middle finger at her in irritation, extracting her foot from the puddle with a swift kicking motion, spraying the dirty water all over Maddie's legs.

Maddie seems stunned into immobility for a few long seconds, staring down in shock at the mess Tilly has made, her mouth hanging open, before she finally says 'Oh no you didn't.'

Tilly grins brazenly back at her as Maddie skims her foot through a puddle and kicks a small wave of rainwater over Tilly's shins. Tilly shrieks again and runs away, hears the echoing slapping footsteps of Maddie racing after her.

Blanketing sheets of heavy rain cloud Tilly's vision as she sprints away from her pursuer, her feet pounding hard on the wet ground, jarring her whole body and expelling the breath from her lungs in sharp puffs. At some point Maddie catches up to her and Tilly forgets why she's running, and they just sprint side by side, shrieking and splashing through the deepening puddles, exhilarated, too soaked to care, laughing hysterically until a muscle-stitch in Tilly's side spreads across her abdomen like twisting barbed wire. 'Slow down,' she splutters, but Maddie just shoves her playfully before running off faster, and Tilly takes as deep a breath as she can before speeding up again, pushing forward, past houses and across roads and around corners.

Their pace loses its urgency as their route takes them beneath the shelter of a railway bridge, their laughter turning to echoes that bounce off the red-brick arches.

'You bitch,' Maddie gasps breathlessly as they finally stop and hunch over in exhaustion, 'I'm totally soaked.'

Tilly grins at her. 'You ... started it,' she tells her, heaving in lungfuls of damp air.

'Did not,' Maddie insists.

'Did too!' Tilly insists.

'Bitch, please, don't you be makin' me throw down,' Maddie tells her and Tilly giggles at how ridiculous the phrase sounds in Maddie's middle-class English accent.

'Tills! Mads!'

They look up sharply at the mention of their names to see Sinead dashing frantically towards the shelter of the bridge. The laughter dies in Tilly's throat as she spots Jen just about two paces behind her, following in an awkward and brisk half-run, one arm clamped firmly over her head in a feeble and ineffective attempt at protection from the weather. Panic starts in the pit of Tilly's stomach, spreading out through her body like poison, and she tenses, frozen rigidly where she stands as the pair of them join her and Maddie in cowering beneath the arch.

'Bloody hell,' Jen's saying as she wipes her fringe, blackened and slippery, out of her eyes with white-cold fingers. She glances nervously at Tilly, half a smile twitching one corner of her mouth upwards. 'Car's in for its MOT,' she announces, answering Tilly's question before it's asked.

Sinead rolls her eyes like the mere sound of Jen's voice just makes her want to scream and sandwiches herself forcefully between Tilly and Maddie. 'Can't believe me Mam wouldn't drive us in,' she says, 'she can be such a stubborn cow sometimes.'

Tilly shifts awkwardly, Sinead and Maddie's conversation fading into background distortion as she looks at Jen who has her head tilted back and her gaze fixed upwards towards the dark, grimy underside of the arch.

'I like the rain,' she says, as if she knows she already has Tilly's attention.

'Me too,' Tilly says quietly, '... as long as I don't have to be out in it,' she clarifies, watches carefully as a small smile graces Jen's features.

'It feels ... good. Cleansing, you know?' she asks, still looking up. 'Like everything will come out in the wash.'

'More likely that everything will be washed away at this rate,' Tilly observes, not once taking her eyes off Jen.

Jen sighs after a second and looks back down. 'It's been a bit much lately, hasn't it?' she comments, and Tilly assumes she's still talking about the rain.

'Yeah,' she answers, 'you must've angered the gods.'

Jen smiles again. 'Me?'

'Yeah ... you,' Tilly says, nudging the tip of Jen's left ankle boot with her foot.

Jen shyly nudges Tilly's foot back, making Tilly smile as well, before the two of them stare out silently into the relentless rain. Somehow, as they stare, their hands inch slowly towards each other, bumping together abruptly, and as Tilly starts slightly from the contact and begins to withdraw her hand in embarrassment she feels Jen's palm open suddenly and snatch her retreating fingers in its grip. Tilly gasps involuntarily, can feel her heartbeat erupt into feverish hammering that seems to pound in every part of her body.

She doesn't look at Jen – can't – just allows the rain to blur her vision as it streaks downwards, listens to the sound of her pulse thumping in the channels of her own ears. She closes her eyes briefly, tries to focus on breathing. Jen's hand is wet and cold, and clenches around Tilly's fingers like half-frozen water, tightening as it crystallises into ice.

When she opens her eyes again she catches Maddie looking at her with an expression of slightly bored contempt, like she knows exactly what's going on and is tired of waiting for Tilly to break down and admit to it all. Tilly stiffens slightly, her gaze flicking guiltily off the walls, unable to let go of Jen's hand, unable to hold Maddie's stare.

A train passes overhead, rumbling and shaking the structure of the bridge so fiercely that for a second Tilly is worried that it might actually collapse; she feels Jen's fingers grip around her own ever so slightly harder.

'Shall we just go?' she hears Sinead say as the clattering subsides, easing into the distance, 'it's not like we can get any wetter, and I have a three page essay to write before second period –,' She whips round suddenly to face Jen, '– and if a word of that gets back to me Mam you and me are gonna seriously fall out,' she warns.

Jen freezes and drops Tilly's hand from her grip like it's burnt her. She blinks rapidly a few times, clearly without the slightest clue as to what Sinead is talking about. 'Of ... of course,' she stammers, makes a zipping motion across her lips as Tilly sneaks her hand carefully back into the pocket of her coat before moving closer to Maddie.

'Yeah ... let's just get on with it shall we?' she says, pulling her hood back over her head. 'No point delaying the inevitable.'

Tilly can feels Jen's presence behind her the rest of the way to school, but doesn't turn around once, and when she passes Jen in a corridor at college later that day Jen doesn't look at her, just keeps on walking by like she's not even there.

.. .. .. ..

School work takes up most of Tilly's time; she works hard to excel at her subjects. She declines nearly all of her friends' invitations to go out in favour of staying in to work, or, alternatively, goes over to Esther's to work, knowing that Maddie won't bother to come looking for her if she's there. Esther brings her cups of tea and plays with the ends of her hair as she works and Tilly often wakes to a darkened room with an open book resting face-down on her chest and Esther curled into her side. She sighs in some sort of half-contentment, like everything is almost what she wants, closes her book and tries to drift back into sleep.

October rolls into November. Darkness falls so early and so fast that by the time Tilly has returned home from college the light in the sky is already extinguishing, and within about half an hour has vanished completely. She retreats into her room for the duration of the evenings, only surfacing to collect the dinner from the place her mum has optimistically set for her at the kitchen table. One particular evening, she is jolted from her routine by a sharp, obdurate rapping on her bedroom door. She tucks her knees up to her chest and lifts one cup of her headphones slightly off her ear to be immediately presented with Maddie bursting into her room without waiting for invitation and fixing her with a withering stare.

'We're going out,' she says.

'Excuse me?' Tilly asks, looks at Maddie over the top of her book of Christina Rossetti poetry.

'It's _Bonfire Night_,' Maddie stresses, marching up to the side of Tilly's bed.

'_So_?' Tilly asks, bemused.

'So get up,' Maddie tells her. 'Or I'll chuck this –' she snatches the book from Tilly's grip '– into an actual bonfire.'

Tilly huffs and stands up, yanking her book back out of Maddie's hands and tucking safely under her arm. 'You're a bully, d'you know that?' she says.

Maddie rolls her eyes as she starts making her way towards the door. 'Of course I do.'

The smoke fills her nostrils the second she steps outside and she inhales deeply; the atmosphere is thick with gunpowder and it feels like it's crackling in the air. They meet up with their friends on the way to a firework display in the town and Maddie links arms with Tilly as they wander towards the huge bonfire that has been erected in the centre of the square, complete with an effigy of Guy Fawkes at the top, already set ablaze, his head lolling over one of his shoulders as the flames shrivel and char his body.

Lights explode in the sky and illuminate the entire congregation with strange, ghostly light. There's clapping and noises of admiration from the crowd who stand, staring skywards and slack-jawed like the figures in the murals Tilly has seen on medieval church walls depicting The Rapture.

She sees her then, as she scans briefly across the crowd of upturned faces, smiling brightly as she cuddles in close to a tall, strapping man. Tilly blinks, not quite believing what she's seeing. Her stomach twists in knots as she stares, narrowing her eyes in concentration, but then the light is gone for a few seconds, the crowd a dark sea of indistinguishable strangers until she hears the screech and pop of another rocket sent into the sky, showering fresh light upon the ground below. Tilly's eyes find them again. Jen and this ... this _man._ She watches closely as they pick their way slowly towards the bonfire. The man has an arm slung protectively around Jen's shoulders and Jen rests a hand on his stomach, leaning the weight of her frame against him. And then darkness descends again until the next firework is ignited.

'Here,' Maddie says as she unceremoniously shoves a hotdog under Tilly's nose.

Tilly recoils in repulsion, bats Maddie's hand away as it obscures her view of Jen, and desperately scans the crowd again for the two of them.

'Er ... what's your problem?' Maddie demands. 'That cost me two pounds fifty,' she says.

'Great ... you keep it,' Tilly grumbles, her eyes still searching until she sees them again, leaning up against the fence that surrounds the bonfire, their smiling faces illuminated in its warm, excitable glow, animated shadows flickering across their features as the flames jump and crackle.

'Who's Miss Gilmore with?' Maddie asks, and Tilly looks round sharply to see that Maddie has followed her gaze and is now staring intently in the direction of the pair.

'How should I know?' Tilly says, finally accepts the hotdog from Maddie's hand and stares at it despondently.

'I thought she was ...'

'Yeah, me too,' Tilly says, realises as she speaks that she never knew what Jen identified as – gay or bi or _whatever –_ alwaysfigured that she was just _Jen _and that nothing else really mattered. She sighs and takes a bite of her hotdog before pulling a face and forcing down the mouthful. 'There's mustard in this,' she says, rolls her eyes as it's swiped from her grasp before she's even offered it by Bart who demolishes it in three-and-a-half bites. She shakes her head, wipes her mouth, tries hard not to look back over towards Jen. She fails, and Jen catches her staring. Her eyes widen and she flicks her gaze guiltily to the man beside her before looking nervously back to Tilly. Tilly just drops her gaze to the floor, does nothing to disguise the hurt she feels.

She thinks it cruel that Maddie should've dragged her out – wonders if there's another version of herself in another universe, sat at home and not feeling this kind of new pain, wonders if ignorance is ever preferable to truth, and when she walks home by herself in the dark and cold all she can think of is a line from the poem she was reading before she went out:

_Take my share of a fickle heart,  
Mine of a paltry love:  
Take it or leave it as you will,  
I wash my hands thereof__._

.. .. .. ..

She's avoids Jen even more stringently than before since that night, and even Jen seems to have noticed, seems to now actively seek eye contact with Tilly when they pass each other in the corridor or from across the canteen, fixes her with the quizzical stare of an admonished puppy when Tilly gives in and looks at her. Tilly just tends to grip onto Esther's hand a little bit harder, waits for the moment to pass, and it always does.

The Christmas holidays arrive before Tilly really has time to register that they're drawing near. The temperature drops, frost appears on the cars in the mornings, blankets the pavements and roads and curls at the corners of the window frames. Tilly dresses in layers of vests and cardigans to keep from freezing when she is forced to venture out of the house to do some Christmas shopping.

She sees Jen in town on Christmas Eve, trying to struggle her way out of a door with a cardboard coffee cup in one hand and an enormous Sports Direct bag weighing down her other arm. Tilly watches her for a few moments, finally gives in and intervenes as she spies a hoard of Christmas shoppers through the window, storming towards the door and on course to mow Jen down.

'Thanks,' Jen breathes as the door is pushed open for her, and Tilly sees Jen's eyes widen in shock as she notices who's helping her. 'Tilly,' she says, almost dropping her coffee all over again.

'Miss,' Tilly says politely. 'Thought you could use a hand,' she adds.

'Er ...' Jen laughs awkwardly, 'Yes I suppose so.' The two of them saunter away from the shop front, ducking under the awning above the window display and out of the slip-stream of people. 'Well ... thank you.'

'What's in the bag?' Tilly asks, nodding her head towards the bag on Jen's arm. 'Looks pretty heavy.'

'Oh it's um ... weights actually,' Jen says, setting the bag down on the ground with a heavy, metallic clang.

Tilly raises her eyebrows. 'Thinking of entering 'Mister Universe' huh?' she asks. 'Because I've heard protein shakes work just as well.'

Jen rolls her eyes. 'Please, _as if _they're for me. It's my brother's Christmas present,' she reveals. 'You honestly think I'd rock the popping-veins, bulging-biceps look?'

Tilly's mouth twitches. 'I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I seem to remember you being pretty strong,' she says before she can stop herself, her mind happily scampering back to an occasion when Jen had pushed her up against a wall before pulling both of the her legs up to wrap around her waist, lifting her weight up onto her hips and pinning her between her own body and the wall.

The pink tinge in Jen's cheeks informs Tilly that she may have also just recalled that particular event. Her eyes dart to one side and she looks down at her bag.

'I didn't know you had a brother,' Tilly says, putting Jen out of her misery. 'Bit of a hunk is he?'

Jen laughs, 'Gross. I don't know. I guess.' Then her expression turns slightly more serious. 'You should know – you saw me with him on Bonfire Night.'

'Oh ...' Tilly says, feeling her own face flush slightly red. 'I thought ...' she bites her lip, 'nevermind.' Embarrassment builds within her like an uncoiling spring, she feels Jen's gaze on her and clears her throat awkwardly. 'Give us a go then,' Tilly says, swiftly changing the subject and reaching for the bag.

Jen motions for Tilly to go right ahead and Tilly fails on the first attempt. 'Jesus,' she says, straightening up and rubbing her shoulder.

Jen smiles affectionately. 'You should hold your stomach in when you lift,' she tells her, touching Tilly's middle gently. 'And bend at the knees,' she adds, 'and keep your back straight,' her other hand reaches round to rest in the small of Tilly's back and Tilly is rendered completely unable to think or speak as her gaze manages to drift, as it always does, to Jen's lips.

Jen lets out a small, awkward laugh and withdraws her hands. 'Just a little advice,' she says, 'in case you were thinking of going into body-building.'

Tilly breathes, tries to pull herself together. 'I'll bear that in mind,' she says.

'So ... last minute shopping?' Jen asks, stepping out the way of someone trying to peer through the window beyond her. She begins to walk away from the shop and Tilly follows her.

'Yeah,' she nods. 'I've been pretty disorganised this year,' she says.

'Me too,' Jen agrees.

'There's been a lot going on I guess,' Tilly continues, and Jen just purses her lips and looks thoughtful in response.

They walk slowly, in an aimless, unhurried kind of way, and Tilly wonders if she should make her excuses and go before Jen inevitably asks her to, but before she gets the chance Jen grabs onto her forearm and points to a shop on the street corner. 'Have you been in there?' she asks.

Tilly shakes her head and Jen jerks her head in its direction to suggest that they go. Tilly just nods mutely, pretty much powerless to do anything else.

It's a small stationary shop that sells the usual sort of tat, cards and pens and wrapping paper, novelty mugs and '100 *blanks* to see before you die' books. She raises her eyebrows at Jen expectantly, waiting for the reason Jen wanted to bring her here to become apparent. Jen simply picks up a small, square shaped card from a display and hands it to Tilly. It has a watercolour of a robin in the snow on the front, painted in bold, scratchy brush strokes, the colours limited to a pallet of earthy reds and browns. It makes Tilly smile.

'Turn it over,' Jen encourages quietly.

Tilly turns the card over in her hand to find the name of the artist printed on the back. 'Edina Gilmore,' she reads out-loud. She frowns, looks back up at Jen.

'My Mum,' Jen says with a smile.

'No way!' Tilly says, flips the card back over to study the picture again. 'It's beautiful,' she says earnestly.

Jen nods. 'My brother and I found a stack of her old paintings when we cleared out her house. She loved birds, see,' she says, points to the other cards in the collection and Tilly realises they're all of small birds in gardens and in trees, on window cills and fence posts and telegraph cables.

Tilly can't help but notice the hint of sadness in Jen's voice, the past-tense she's using in her description. 'Your Mum ... is she ...'

'Four years ago,' Jen answers before Tilly finishes. 'Breast cancer. All the money from the cards goes to cancer research.'

Tilly clenches her jaw, not really sure what to say. 'I'm sorry,' she says, and it feels pointless and insensitive.

Jen shrugs a little, goes to take the card from Tilly's hand and replace it on the shelf, but Tilly snatches it away from Jen's grasp before wordlessly moving over to the shop counter and buying it.

Jen smiles as they leave the shop, nudging Tilly gently with her shoulder. 'She'd have liked you,' she says, and Tilly's heart swells that little bit more.

It's already dark by the time they start heading home. Their breath steams and curls into the air, wisping like smoke up into the dark sky. Their boots scuff along the pavement that glistens quietly with a thin sheen of frost, and the windows and Christmas lights of the rows of houses they walk past offer a warm yellow glow that trails their path home. Tilly glances sideways at Jen as they walk, her face turned downwards, careful of where she treads on the slippery frost, her nose tinged red from the cold and her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

'Well,' Tilly stops abruptly at the front gate of an unremarkable building, barely distinguishable from the other houses along the street. 'This is me,' she says, and then cringes inwardly at how clichéd it sounds.

Jen bobs her head in acknowledgement, then squints towards the house and its single solitary window lit on the first floor. A trail of Christmas lights hangs below the guttering like icicles, sombre and unlit. 'Anyone home?' she asks.

'My parents,' Tilly answers, then frowns. 'I guess it's kind of weird you didn't know where I lived.'

Jen looks thoughtful for a moment. 'I guess.'

'But then I didn't know you had a brother,' Tilly supposes, filling the silence that follows Jen's concession.

Jen's quiet look of contemplation passes, and she smiles a little strangely. 'I think we both know we're not the sum of our parts like that,' she says. 'You know more of me than anyone I think,' she adds quietly, the smile fading slightly, the light from the window reflecting brightly in the centre of her eyes.

Tilly purses her lips, nods in half-agreement. 'It keeps it all so unreal though,' she says. 'Like ... sometimes I have to convince myself that it even happened.'

A door slams a few houses down and a dog barks, and both girls start and whip their heads in the direction of the noise.

Tilly looks back at Jen almost sheepishly, embarrassed to have caught herself talking about it. 'I should go in,' she says, and Jen's immediate nod of agreement makes her feel like she should've already done so.

'I should head back too,' she says, gestures unnecessarily back to the road behind her with her thumb. 'Diane's got some meal planned or something. Think she's trying to impress Liam,' she says, a hint of mischief in her voice.

Tilly smiles a little. 'Well ... I'm not sure I approve of the age-gap,' she says and Jen lets out a sharp bark of laughter and immediately rushes a hand to her mouth to contain it.

Tilly's smile grows broader at the reaction, and her stomach aches when she thinks how perfect it would be to reach for Jen in the cold night and feel her smile against her lips as she kisses her, feel the laughter in her throat.

Jen manages to regain control of herself all too quickly though, and the moment passes as quickly as it had begun. 'Life's pretty strange isn't it Tilly,' she says, with a sigh that is accompanied by a plume of white breath. 'I mean, a year ago I was stuck in this, like, _stifling_ relationship that I couldn't bring myself to end. I was so unhappy ... felt like my life was over at twenty-two – stuck in these dull routines with someone who just ... didn't challenge me. Didn't excite me ...' she looks down briefly. 'And I'd just wish ...' she pauses, tries again, 'I'd just wish – '

'Careful what you wish for, right Miss?' Tilly says. The formality slips from her mouth as a force of habit, and Jen looks at her quizzically.

'Miss,' she echoes in a trance-like way, like the very word has hypnotised her. Then she shakes her head and closes her eyes for a second. 'It's cold,' she says when she opens them again, a new, polite smile fixed firmly on her face.

'It's winter,' Tilly tells her, helpfully.

'It's Christmas,' Jen corrects her.

'So it is,' Tilly agrees. 'Well, in that case, merry Christmas Jen.'

'Merry Christmas Tilly,' Jen says. Her smile is bright but barely disguises the sadness in her voice, and as Tilly looks at her she notices that her eyes are shining wetly.

And then, as if it was the only natural conclusion to the conversation, Tilly leans forwards and kisses her, slow and purposefully on the lips, hears her breath catch slightly, feels the coldness of her nose against her cheek, how her chilled skin contrasts so deliciously with the wet heat of her mouth. She feels her tremble slightly, and raises her hands to pull her closer by the collars of her coat.

The air smells like Christmas – sweetness and warmth, spices and sugar, drifting through the bitterly cold night. And the kiss almost feels like their first.


End file.
